One issue I have personally struggled with is food and cooking. I like to eat healthy, fresh, digestible food on the wall, but this gets tougher to do the longer I am off the ground. Some folks can live off of junk, but my tastes seem to require bulky food, large cook sets, and refrigeration. Do you have any advice (or are you one who can live off of partially hydrogenated and freeze dried chow indefinitely)? What do you cook with? How do you do your dishes and minimize the mess? What's on the menu?

I'm mostly a dehydrated food kind of guy. My dinners are all dehydrated. I do haul up apples, oranges, dates, cereal with dehydrated milk though. I'm sort of a food is fuel kind of guy and semi don't care what I eat. One tip I'll mention here about that, and something I've partially done, is to have my first few meals be something that requires a little bit of work, Sandwiches with sprouts, cheese, avacado, tomato, mustard, mayo, good bread, etc. I tend to eat that stuff in the early days of the climb and go for the dehydrated stuff towards the end. Good idea for a Tips Sheet though, Thanks!

One issue I have personally struggled with is food and cooking. I like to eat healthy, fresh, digestible food on the wall, but this gets tougher to do the longer I am off the ground. Some folks can live off of junk, but my tastes seem to require bulky food, large cook sets, and refrigeration. Do you have any advice (or are you one who can live off of partially hydrogenated and freeze dried chow indefinitely)? What do you cook with? How do you do your dishes and minimize the mess? What's on the menu?

If memory serves; years ago, there was a climber named Mark Hudon who was crack climbing at a level bordering superhuman with his partner Max Jones. Is this you?Is this what happens as age advances( me included)? We become big wall climbers? Not that don't consider aid- climbing, it's just a different game; more mental, more faith in gear, more committing. more work. I planned to get back into it,probably alone mario

Yeah, that's me. Max and I climbed El Cap last fall. We hadn't done any real climbing together in 30 years. I wrote a TR about it over at SuperTopo. If you search for it in the TR section, you'll find it.

I still like to free climb and have dreams and plans for Freerider soon.

The Nose in a Day is all about being able to ramble up 5.10b/c and endurance. You have to just keep going and going and going full steam till you get to the top. If you're climbing full time, training is no problem, if you are not that lucky, lifting weights and 30-45 minutes laps on a wall are a must. I'd rather suffer in the gym than suffer on the climb so training comes easy to me.

One issue I have personally struggled with is food and cooking. I like to eat healthy, fresh, digestible food on the wall, but this gets tougher to do the longer I am off the ground. Some folks can live off of junk, but my tastes seem to require bulky food, large cook sets, and refrigeration. Do you have any advice (or are you one who can live off of partially hydrogenated and freeze dried chow indefinitely)? What do you cook with? How do you do your dishes and minimize the mess? What's on the menu?

Freeze dried or dehydrated food makes no sense on a wall. You'll have to carry the water anyway (unless, of course, you can get water/ice on the wall). Why bother with the hassle of removing H20 only to mix it back in later? It's not like it remains fresher that way.

I bring the best canned food I can find. Or I make soup and pack it in Nalgene's. Another trick I'm pretty proud of is to buy a gourmet burrito, freeze it, and stuff it in a tennis ball can. It's good for a couple days at least. Apples, oranges, and carrots all pack pretty good. Smoked salmon keeps well but can get messy. PB, honey and bagels all travel well, too. And now you can get those Indian food dishes in the foil pouches....

Actually, now that I think about it, it would be sweet to have a long list of wall-worthy foods to make a menu from. I've got some good ideas, but I'd love to hear some new ones.

Believe me, if you are a good cook and want to figure out the meals for a wall then I want to climb a wall with you!

So the best canned food money can buy gives you what advantage? I'll bet that it weighs the same as a dehydrated meal plus the water it takes to hydrate it. Your Burrito trick is nice but it's still a cold meal. Yes to fresh fruit and those Indian food pouches.

All I need to do to cook the meal is usually boil two cups of water with my hanging Jetboil, pour it into the food pouch, stir it up and let it sit for 10 minutes. Eat it right out of the pouch, lick my spoon clean and I'm done!

I think the question should be, "What is the advantage of dehydrated food?" It is certainly more of a hassle than simply cracking open a can. Of course, if someone else is willing to go through the trouble, then I won't stand in their way! I'll take care of the after dinner drinks!

Ultimately, I'm no food critic when I'm on a wall. Everything tastes like fine cuisine when you're sitting on your ledge after a hard day of climbing!

Of course, opinions will vary, but a cold can of ravioli is no where near as tasty or nutritious as a common dehydrated meal. (Have you eaten a dehydrated meal lately? I know that back when I was a Boy Scout they really sucked but these days they aren't bad at all) And I would consider you correct to say that preparing a dehydrated meal is more of a hassle than opening a can, if I was hanging from a hammock like we used to do in the past. But now, with double ledges, hanging stoves, the ease of boiling water, I don't know, that doesn't sound like much effort to me. Maybe YOU need to do a wall with ME.

They offer a full menu inside one convenient bag. Include toilet paer too. Before headed up the wall, I remove all cardboard wrappings inside the waterproof proof, then reseal the pooch with duct tape.

I usually pack two per person per day. Each meal also has a no flame heather for heating it's content. Just add a bit of water tot he chemical-pack and wait for the chemistry to begin.

They offer a full menu inside one convenient bag. Include toilet paer too. Before headed up the wall, I remove all cardboard wrappings inside the waterproof proof, then reseal the pooch with duct tape.

I usually pack two per person per day. Each meal also has a no flame heather for heating it's content. Just add a bit of water tot he chemical-pack and wait for the chemistry to begin.

one of the tricks a friend of mine uses is to take those meals that are made to be boiled in their own package (tasty treats or the chili verde/carne asada packets in the packaged meat section by the sausages) and make those.

The benefit is that after you have the hot food, you can put the water in a nalgene and take it to bed with you,once it cools off it reverts back to te drinking water stock.

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personally too much work for me as I fall into the powerbar, gorp, and beef jerky diet on the wall.

- - - dehydrated food tastes amazing these days. We have a lot of the Mountain House stuff at my summer camp for the backpacking program; those kids are living like kings out on the trail.

One issue I have personally struggled with is food and cooking. I like to eat healthy, fresh, digestible food on the wall, but this gets tougher to do the longer I am off the ground. Some folks can live off of junk, but my tastes seem to require bulky food, large cook sets, and refrigeration. Do you have any advice (or are you one who can live off of partially hydrogenated and freeze dried chow indefinitely)? What do you cook with? How do you do your dishes and minimize the mess? What's on the menu?

Freeze dried or dehydrated food makes no sense on a wall. You'll have to carry the water anyway (unless, of course, you can get water/ice on the wall). Why bother with the hassle of removing H20 only to mix it back in later? It's not like it remains fresher that way.

It is not that simple. I actually made that argument the very first time I went up El Cap and my partner wanted to bring MRE's. So we weighed out the MREs, the water required to make them, and the stove, the and fuel required to cook them. We compared that to the weight of the caned goods that would replace them if we opted to go without the MREs. We found the MREs, extra water, and stove weighed less. It makes sense, caned goods already contain water, so either way you are bringing the water. However, with a MRE you get a nice cooked warm meal, and they taste pretty good! So I am with Mark on this one, MREs are the way to go. The only downside is they are expensive.